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Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Hi again. Well, what a topsy-turvey day! Son had to have knee surgery today, but all looks promising for a speedy recovery as he's home again and without the pain he had been experiencing. With him sorted, there'll be time for other plans to go ahead at last... including a major make-over of a craft room in the near future.
In the meantime, I'm still experimenting with different mediums and how these can be used on layouts. I love using fibres, and fabrics to create texture and give additional layers. The layout I am showing today, has been created using fabric over a strongly marked background paper.
The colours in the paper and material overlay, reflect the earthy warm tones on the palette of colours for this month's inspiration at Scrapping Outback: http://scrapping-outback.blogspot.com.au
This is the first time I've visited this site and I'm getting this entry in by the skin of my teeth!

The dark brown, tan and cream striped background paper has been overlaid with a leaf-patterned organza. Some of the leaves on the pattern had been cut, using a heat tool which can also be used for pyrography. This cut the edges cleanly and sealed them at the same time to prevent fraying.
Additional leaves for the embellishment were cut from another darker organza. On these, I melted the edges more, to make the leaves curl and to give them more shape. Some caught a little more than intended, and now have a crispier look..... not quite to flame stage!
The photos are of some tawny frogmouths which reside in our garden during the summer months. The newest addition to this small family, was definitely AD/HD.... very, very fidgety and often kept its parents awake during the day. It provided heaps of interesting photos with its antics.
The colours on the layout in this photo are actually darker than they appear. The artificial light was all I could use this late in the evening.
Thank you for visiting. I love reading your comments. Cheers, Di

Hi and welcome. I've been bouncing around different Blogs this last week, discovering amazing artists and their gorgeous work. While doing this, I also found some great challenge sites I hadn't known about. The result of all of this was for me to try some new challenges. Now that I've bookmarked the sites, I hope to visit them more often.
A wintry layout was the requirement at: http://showusyourstuff.blogspot.com.au/. Winters where I live are fairly mild compared to other parts of the country. The photos chosen for this layout were taken on top of Mt Wellington, Hobart while on a trip there in 2010. It was our first experience of ice and snow (even though it was a light covering) and we found it truly amazing. We couldn't get over the plants which had been transformed into crystalline structures, or the huge sheets of ice which had formed on the towers. It really was quite magical in appearance.

The background card stock was stamped, smooshed with Distress Inks and lightly sprayed with Glimmer mists. Die cut and punched crystals made from pearlescent card and mirror board were added and finished with Crystalina Kindyglitz.
We had a fabulous holiday and Tasmania has become a favourite destination and we're looking forward to going back again.
Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comments.
Cheers, Di

Thursday, 18 July 2013

Hi and welcome! This month's inspiration at ARTastic has been based on a beautiful artwork by Lorraine Lewitzke 'Rock and Roll Party', with the challenge being to use black and white with one other colour. To see what the design team has come up with pop over to:http://artasticchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/
I've chosen a school photo of son and self, probably taken in 1988, when he was in year 2. I wanted the background to reflect some of the softness of the inspiration piece, so used lengths of ribbon and lace and sequin waste over a lightly patterned paper.
Cogs were die-cut and randomly daubed with Kindy glitz. The background of the clock (from Dusty Attic) was embossed with an embossing folder, and the clock heat embossed.

To complete the layout, I added embossed chipboard corner flourishes and added buttons, (the hands on the clock are also buttons) lacquered wooden stars and fabric flowers.
The two white buttons are from one of son's old school shirts!

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

Hi and welcome!
I've had my first go at producing something in the Steampunk mode... at least I hope it is! A lovely crafty friend, Judi, lent me her Chocolate Baroque set, with a gorgeous butterfly. It is this that I chose to use as part of a tag for the current ABAC Challenge 23 'Steampunk'. See what the design team has come up with at: http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/
I started by covering a tag with self-adhesive aluminium plumbers flashing; embossed in 2 different folders, just to give a couple of different textures on the background. This was then smooshed with alcohol inks.

I thought that this didn't look quite old enough, so I smeared on some 3D stamping paint and when dry, lightly sanded back some of the raised sections.

The effect can't fully be seen here, but this did tone the colours back quite well.
The butterfly was stamped onto silver mirror board and coloured with permanent markers before being adorned with brass brads and bling.

Cogs were also die cut from the same card and inked with alcohol inks and Vintaj Patinas.﻿

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Roses were quilled from folded strips of aluminium kitchen foil. This took a little experimentation to find the right number of times to fold the strips so that they stayed intact. Alcohol inks were swiped across the petals, and Patina carefully tipped on and smoothed out with a small brush.

I completed the tag with a strip of lace from my stash.

This was an interesting challenge and it certainly took me in a new direction of experimentation.

Saturday, 6 July 2013

Hi! Just getting this in before the deadline at:http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/ . This challenge (Number 22) certainly had me getting messy, sticky and inky! - some very interesting effects on my fingers!
I started by covering a piece of patterned card with Gel Medium. On this were placed punched flowers and other shapes, another layer of gel and a layer of tissue paper.

This was covered with gesso, spritzed with Dylusions Sprays and lightened with White Linen. When dry, a section was stencilled using 3D Stamping Paint. At this stage, I decided that I didn't really like the overall effect, so I added some more gesso over all of it (a thin layer) and when dry, smooched on Distress Inks, leaving a more subtle effect.

Various other pieces were prepared. This used the natural dyes from flowers and foliage: freshly picked, put between light card and rolled through the Cuttlebug:- very effective, but it can be rather messy because some plants are juicier than others. The rollers have to be cleaned as soon as you finish.﻿

The stencil piece is a second generation stencilling. The original was quite bright (have kept it for something else). When gessoed it had been lightly spritzed with Dylusions. For the above, I flipped the stencil over and added just a little more gesso, drawing in any colour still left. I liked the effect it had of additional foliage in the background.﻿

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This is a piece of microfiche. The same stencil has been used, this time with the 3D Stamping paint.

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The chipboard was smooshed with Distress Inks and then had Vintaj Patina brushed on to give more of an aged look.﻿

The piece has a slightly textured finish and even though on card, still has a slightly metallic appearance.﻿

Some stamping around the edges and a stamped film strip, have completed the front cover.﻿

﻿This cover and panelling are now the first part of "My Messy Journey" .... an art journal to hold information and samples of the messy experiments. Hopefully many pages will be added.

Tuesday, 2 July 2013

Hi and welcome.
I'm thrilled to announce that I have been accepted as a member of the design team for a great new challenge blog "Pixels and Paper" , a companion blog to ARTastic, which started today. The first challenge for the month of July is up, so pop over to the blog at http://pixelsandpaperchallengeblog.blogspot.com.au/ to see the delightful inspirational photo and what the other design team members have been up to.
The photo I used for my inspiration was of my husband's grandfather, with his faithful companion, both gazing contemplatively out to sea. We don't know much about Jesse Hasthorpe, but this is one of those 'must find out more before it's too late' missions. Sadly, much of our families histories and everyday anecdotes have been lost. One of my goals is to glean as much information as possible from still living relatives to add to the information we already have.

The layout has been done in mainly earthy tones, with the only bright colour ( to hint at a seascape)added under the photo. This was taken from a piece of experimental cardstock, using gesso, Dylusion inks and acrylic paints over a stencil. The photo was distressed and inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The frame around it was smooched with Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Pumice Stone D.I's and stamped with Coffee Archival.

To add extra texture, I've tucked under the photo a piece of embossed cardboard, fussy cut vellum, and a die cut clock. This has been smooched with Inca Gold and 3D Stamping Paint. This paint has also been used to colour the chipboard seahorse (Bronze, Chocolate and Moss Green) and to stamp the fish (Silver). The stamp used for the fish came from the Inkadinkado Stamping Gear sets.

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The cogs, die cut from bookbinding fabric, and the title have also been coloured using the same paint.

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I hope you will visit Pixels and Paper and maybe even join in the challenges being offered. We'd love to see you there.
I hope that this gives you some inspiration and ideas.
Thank you for visiting and thank you also to all of you who always leave such positive and inspirational comments.
Cheers, Di